In 2009, an international symposium of craftspeople working with metal was held at Peters Valley Craft Center in Layton, New Jersey. Artists from Spain, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Portugal, Scotland and the United States were invited to gather and create work addressing the artist’s relationship to the world around us.
I was asked to present a talk and create with the assistance of the other symposium participants a large, permanent, outdoor sculptural installation. Choosing to speak  of  Aldo Leopold and design my installation in response to his 1949 book, “A Sand County Almanac," which was influential  to my thinking regarding environmental issues.
I envisioned an installation of  three hand woven, recycled-scrap copper walls. Weaving each wall on site with the assistance of the other participants each wall would be 120'’ high x 168'’ long x 14" deep. My intent was to demonstrate what Leopold referred to as “land ethic”, a visible reminder of the relationship between people and nature. Copper is a reactive metal. I intended that color changes on the coppers surface, the result of the metals interaction with local pollutants,  would provide a visual demonstration of Leopold's "land ethic" philosophy.  The more dramatic the color change the greater the degree of pollution.
 Leopold wrote, "One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the unchanged dimensional marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.” My intent was to make the invisible pollution, visible. 
Leopold also wrote that, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise,”.  Peter's Valley  had been plagued for decades by constant, ruinous flooding of its' buildings and property.   By careful positioning of each  wall on the crest of a centrally located dell, the walls could divert rain water, decrease the flooding and create a new rain garden in the dells'  basin  again making the invisible, visible.